On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 09:15:50PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:> > On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Victor Yodaiken wrote:> >> > Ok. There was no design, just "less than random mutations".> > Deep.> > I'm not claiming to be deep, I'm claiming to do it for fun.> > I _am_ claiming that the people who think you "design" software are> seriously simplifying the issue, and don't actually realize how they> themselves work.

Just to make sure we are speaking the same language, here is what theOxford English Dictionary sez Design: (1) a plan or scheme conceived in the mind; a project. ... (2) a purpose, an intention, an aim ... (3) an end in view, a goal ... (4) A preliminary sketch, a plan or pattern

For the verb we get things like: "draw, sketch, outline, delineate"

> > > There was a overall architecture, from Dennis and Ken.> > Ask them. I'll bet you five bucks they'll agree with me, not with you.> I've talked to both, but not really about this particular issue, so I> might lose, but I think I've got the much better odds.

You're on. Send me the $5.Here's what Dennis Ritchie wrote in his preface to the re-issued Lionsbook: "you will see in the code an underlying structure that has lasted a long time and has managed to accomodate vast changes in the computing environment"

> If you want to see a system that was more thoroughly _designed_, you> should probably point not to Dennis and Ken, but to systems like L4 and> Plan-9, and people like Jochen Liedtk and Rob Pike.

You appear to be using "design" to mean "complete specification". See above.

> > And notice how they aren't all that popular or well known? "Design" is> like a religion - too much of it makes you inflexibly and unpopular.

Memory fades with age, as I know from sad experience, but try toremember who wrote things like:

| |However, I still would not call "pthreads" designed. | |Engineered. Even well done for what it tried to do. But not "Designed". | |This is like VMS. It was good, solid, engineering. Design? Who needs |design? It _worked_. | |But that's not how UNIX is or should be. There was more than just |engineering in UNIX. There was Design with a capital "D". Notions of |"process" vs "file", and things that transcend pure engineering. |Minimalism. | |In the end, it comes down to aesthetics. pthreads is "let's solve a |problem". But it's not answering the big questions in the universe. |It's not asking itself "what is the underlying _meaning_ of threads?". |"What is the big picture?".

Some academic twit, no doubt, with no understanding or experience inactually making a blue collar OS really work.The same fool once wrote: